


Is that a threat or a promise?

by unhappy_matt



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Difference, Alcohol, Casual Sex, Character Study, Choking, Cunnilingus, Dark John Winchester, Dark Thoughts, Established Relationship, Face Slapping, Hair-pulling, Hunting does weird things to your sex life, Implied Consent, Implied Past Attempted Sexual Assault, Implied Violence, Introspection, Knife Play, Light Bondage, M/M, OC through the eyes of a canon character, Out of Character, Rape Roleplay, Rough Sex, Size Difference, Sort Of, Transmasculine OC, Vaginal Sex, classic Supernatural aesthetic, consensual but not very safe, fighting and death threats as foreplay, implied sex work, implied slut shaming and transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:35:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29445675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unhappy_matt/pseuds/unhappy_matt
Summary: John meets with Thomasin, a fellow hunter and occasional lover.An exchange follows.
Relationships: John Winchester/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	Is that a threat or a promise?

**Author's Note:**

> Set somewhere around season 1. 
> 
> Uhm. Well. Happy Valentine's Day to me, I guess?
> 
> So. In case anyone wants to partake in some John Winchester thirst, and/or meet my OC in the most uncensored way possible, here you go.
> 
> -
> 
> Some musical inspirations: 
> 
> "Code Red" - Tori Amos  
> "Smooth Operator" - Sade  
> "Dangerous Woman" - Rosenfeld  
> "Haunted Heart" - Christina Aguilera  
> "Jezebel" - Sade  
> "She's a vampire" - Gus D. Wynns & The Breakers  
> "Selfish Love" - Jessie Ware  
> "Bad Things" - Meiko  
> "You sent me flying" - Amy Winehouse

It starts the way it always does between them.

It starts with a rainy night in September, in the outskirts of a small town near the highway, a place that is _nowhere_ the same way countless other towns are _nowhere_.

John gets out of the nondescript car he’s been using. Red light flickers in the pools of muddy water on the asphalt under his feet, reflecting the neon signs of the apartment complex.

Water drips from his hair. John shakes his head, throwing a glance around. A flash of lightning in the distance, turning the sky violet-brown for a moment; the air is warm with electricity. The hefty weight of his gun in his jacket, the solid presence of the knife tucked in his boot.

He heads toward the bar on the opposite side of the empty parking lot.

It starts the way it has started every other time over the last few months: in a dimly lit bar that smells like smoke, with the crackling, faded background sound of blues playing on the radio.

John lingers in the doorway, his eyes scan the room. Force of habit. The place is right, this is the address in the message he received.

John finds him, finally, in a corner, near a poster-sized black and white picture of some local baseball team.

“Thomasin.”

Pale skin, dark eyes. Thomasin leans back, one arm bent around the backrest, one leg slung over the other chair next to him. Thighs hugged by black jeans. Black leather jacket and fingerless gloves; a flash of silver around his neck. John makes out the shape of the chain and the locket he has seen before.

“John.” Thomasin’s hair looks freshly cut; buzzed short on the sides, longer on top, sticking out in small, messy tufts that look soft to the touch. So dark it’s nearly black.

John takes a seat. Two glasses between them.

Thomasin slides one toward him, glass scraping against wood, and raises his own. He still favors vodka, from the looks of it. “I took the liberty of ordering for you.”

 _That_ is how it starts, really; with a dark look over a drink, and a sharp smile pressed to the rim of a glass. A sliver of pink tongue darting between white, crooked teeth. Piercings on Thomasin’s ears glisten in the faint light—small silver rings, protection on body parts that are tender and vulnerable. Specks of red like flames seem to flicker in his hair.

John’s pulse rumbles. “I don’t have much time,” he says, voice low. He downs his whiskey, slams the glass on the table.

Thomasin’s eyes trail unashamedly over his face. “I know,” he offers, in a conciliatory tone; but he doesn’t stop smiling, and his grin is wolfish. The overly relaxed posture, the composure; they’re a pretense, John knows. It’s a show, and people _are_ watching. This is a spot for hunters, although not one John usually frequents.

Thomasin paces himself, finishing his drink in slow sips. He sets the glass down and slides his leg off the chair; his thighs part briefly. When he gets up, motions lax and fluid, it’s entirely on his own terms. Thomasin pushes and pulls but he knows the right balance, the right moment to let go just as John’s patience for the dance is starting to run thin. _I don’t say no to things I want_ , Thomasin told him the night they met.

Upright, his head barely comes up to John’s chest. He’s smaller than that, without the thick, black boots.

There are people who take one look at Thomasin and they underestimate him. They don’t make that mistake twice.

Their eyes lock. Thomasin nods toward the door. “Let’s go, then.”

When he’d first met him, John had thought Thomasin was a girl who liked to dress masculine, for practicality or safety. Instead he’s a guy. He’s younger than John, around twenty-five or twenty-six. Young, but not that young. Not in their line of work.

Thomasin used to have another name, once, but John never learned it. He doesn’t know Thomasin’s past, about what may be the story that lead him to their path. Doesn’t matter. All hunters share the same story, after all: the evil that hides in the dark took something from them, it took someone they loved, and they decided to do something about it.

Thomasin knows about John’s family, but he’s always been wise enough not to ask.

John follows Thomasin through the parking lot, just a couple of steps between them. The evening sky is getting darker; the air is cool and damp.

He could feel _guilt_ over doing this, _shame_ , for a multitude of reasons. He finds he doesn’t have it in him to give a damn. Those are feelings John left behind, in his life from _before_.

Besides, it’s Thomasin who sought him out, this time. Said he had a lead. He asked for something in exchange, and John could procure it, that’s all.

Hunters talk, and John knows the things they say about Thomasin. The words they have for him are often far from kind. _Easy_ and _slut_ and _freak_ are some of the nicer ones.

Let them talk. The kid’s a hunter, same as any of them. As for the rest—in the life they lead, they all have to make do. They hustle, and they grip to the air they breathe and to anything they can get, with tooth and nail, for as long as they can. Thomasin makes a living, and he knows how to survive.

-

They get to the apartment complex. They walk undisturbed up two flights of stairs. A long corridor, peeling wallpaper with ugly floral motifs, dusty carpeted floors.

Thomasin opens the door to his flat, throws a glance in John’s direction, then steps back to let him pass first. The lock clicks as Thomasin shuts the door behind them.

Orange light when Thomasin flicks the switch. Olive-green wall paint and closed blinds that make the room look small, boarded-up; but it smells clean, lemony fresh. Creaking wooden tiles and a large bed, headboard pressed to the wall on the right, two thick pillows and a dark blue duvet. Two doors on the left, wood painted white.

The place looks lived in, but it’s unlikely Thomasin will stay for long. He’s been here about a week, from what John has gathered; already longer than usual. Soon he’ll be on the move again.

Thomasin undresses quickly, shedding clothes like layers of skin. The jacket first, then he steps out of his boots, he peels the jeans off. A plain white t-shirt underneath, grey boxers. Large shoulders, narrow waist, slender hips. Sinewy legs covered in a pattern of whitened scars and thin dark hairs. A tangle of flowers and vines tattooed in bright reds and blacks climbing up his left calf.

John watches as Thomasin slides out of his shirt. His necklaces dangle over the black tank top he uses to flatten his chest, with a rattle of metal. He takes them off, the iron locket first, then the thinner chain with the silver cross. John’s breath catches. He gave Thomasin the cross, a few months ago. He’d figured he wouldn’t keep it, wouldn’t wear it, maybe.

Thomasin rolls up the tank top, the hem sliding up his sides. He doesn’t meet John’s eyes, then, but he must sense John looking. The top is discarded, meeting the rest of Thomasin’s clothes on the floor. The room is warm but the space feels cramped, the air stifling, walls closing in.

The tattoo of a black cross flashes between rippling shoulder blades. A long stretch of raised tissue, white and thick, a gift from the claws of a werewolf cutting obliquely across the small of Thomasin’s back.

Thomasin turns around to face him, then, closing the distance between them. He helps John out of his jacket and John lets him. Thomasin goes to hang it in a corner, on a chair near a wooden desk covered in piles of books and loose pages. John walks up to him, following him closely.

Thomasin holds up a metal flask. He takes a sip, dipping his head back, white light dancing on the arc of his throat. He hands it to John.

John drinks, tastes the heat of Thomasin’s mouth on the metal. He steps close; they’re face to face again. He puts the flask back.

“I’m not playing,” he warns. A hand on the nape of Thomasin’s neck, squeezing lightly.

Thomasin looks up at him. His dark eyes harden, something like a shadow passing on his face.

“No.” Plush lips part. “Me neither.”

It’s not surprising, when it comes, but it’s fast. The flash of his own knife at John’s temple, and he ducks, but it still grazes his shoulder, nicking the skin under John’s shirt. Thomasin is quicker, lighter. The blade hisses through the air, inches from his stomach.

He gets a hold of Thomasin’s wrist, tugging hard, moving in a semicircle until he’s behind Thomasin. He twists Thomasin’s arm between his shoulder blades until Thomasin hisses, the knife slipping back into John’s hand.

He holds it to Thomasin’s neck, from behind, the flat of the blade pressed to his throat, just below his jaw.

John twists the knife, slicing into the surface of Thomasin’s skin just barely, enough for a small trickle of blood to glisten under the metal. Thomasin’s mouth hangs open, heartbeat quickening, his body draped against John’s chest.

John clamps strands of Thomasin’s hair in his fist and throws the knife to a side. With a hand circling Thomasin’s waist, he spins him around, shoving him back against the wall until Thomasin is cornered, wrists pinned under John’s hands.

John’s palms slide down, he grabs Thomasin’s hips, hoists him up. Thomasin’s not a woman, and there’s little softness in him. Thomasin’s body is all sharp bones and wiry muscles, the ridges of hips and ribs and clavicles cutting as John presses him into the wall, with a hand around Thomasin’s throat. Less light and frail than he looks, but John still slams him again, hard, knocking the wind out of him. Thomasin grins wildly, and snakes his legs around John’s hips.

John adjusts his grip, tightening one hand under Thomasin’s thigh. Thomasin’s throat twitches under his thumb.

They breath hard in the quiet room, their lips close. Thomasin leans closer, hands cupping John’s face—his fingers are cold—and kisses him harshly, with a sharp bite to John’s lower lip.

John pulls back with a snarl. His grip tightens around Thomasin’s waist and he throws him over his shoulder. Thomasin struggles. No use; John carries him to the bed and tosses him sideways onto the mattress.

Thomasin fights, instantly seizing the momentum to slide himself free from John’s hands. John grips a fistful of his hair, pulls him up, he watches the way Thomasin’s pale back arches backward. Thomasin growls when John yanks him back, one hand in his hair, the other digging into his hip.

John leans closer, covering Thomasin’s body with his own. He presses him into the mattress. The heat of Thomasin’s bare legs through his jeans makes him ache, fully hard now.

He shoves Thomasin back down when he tries to move, with a hand to the nape of his neck, pressing the side of his cheek flat against the duvet.

“Stop fighting this,” John growls, mouth grazing Thomasin’s ear. He senses the full-bodied, prey-like shiver in response, and he pins both of Thomasin’s arms down, bending them down at an uncomfortable angle.

Thomasin hisses and squirms when John yanks his boxers down, dips his hand between Thomasin’s thighs from behind. His fingers find Thomasin wet and Thomasin shakes and groans into the mattress.

He slips his middle finger in and Thomasin whimpers violently, tensing and going lax. “Fuck,” he groans, arching down to meet more of John’s touch, while John makes it two fingers and strokes at his clit, palming the heated skin. Up close, the scent of Thomasin’s body is different than what he’s used to, the smell of his skin acre and pungent. John noses at the short hair on his nape. Familiar, when he licks the sweat rolling off Thomasin’s black tattoo.

John pulls back, dragging Thomasin’s underwear down and around his ankles, and out of the way.

Thomasin is quiet. John allows him a head start, waits to see what his next move will be. As soon as the grip on his arms slackens, Thomasin is quick to twist around, a powerful kick aimed at John’s chest. Enough force in it to push him back, for a moment.

He blocks the second kick with both hands closing vice-like around Thomasin’s calf, pulling Thomasin back along the rippling sheets. The same euphoria as before darts through his veins again, more powerful now, even as John hates it. It’s the thrill of doing this with someone who can fight him, someone who got him down on the floor the first time they fucked.

He blocks Thomasin’s legs with the weight of his own, shoves his way between Thomasin’s thighs. He lifts his arm and backhands him, once, hitting hard and controlled.

“Again,” Thomasin pants.

John raises his hand and slaps him a second time, hard enough that the impact tingles on his palm and Thomasin’s head snaps to the side, his cheek hitting the mattress.

When Thomasin looks up at him again, panting, his smile is bloody. “That all you got?”

John picks the knife back up from where he left it on the floor, flattens the blade against Thomasin’s cheek this time, the other hand still holding Thomasin’s wrists. “You gonna make this hard on yourself?”

Thomasin licks his split lip, makes it glisten with spit and blood. “Come on,” Thomasin urges, low and hungry. “Give me your worst.”

John lets go of the knife, rests it on the pillow near Thomasin’s head. He slides his belt free, loops it around Thomasin’s wrists, binds them tightly together and secures them to the headboard. Thomasin’s smile relaxes, the glint in his eyes mean and eager.

John stands. He removes his boots, his jeans. His shirt, too, after a moment. Thomasin’s eyes rake up his body. He left John with a gift of angry red scratches on his back, a different time, the unfamiliar sting of them following him for days.

He leans down to grab a condom from where he left it inside his back pocket.

The edge of the mattress dips under his knee. “You can’t stop me,” he says, softer, _absolute_. He slides the condom on, keeps stroking himself slowly.

Thomasin thrashes all the same. His legs are spread, muscles in his abdomen and shoulders rippling.

“Or else?” he taunts, sweat glistening on his pale throat. “Gonna kill me, John? Cut my throat? Put a bullet through my brain?” His arms flex. He could break free; but he won’t.

John thumbs the curve of Thomasin’s lower lip. “I could,” he says quietly. The simple truth of it makes his cock stir and strain. The arousal coiled tightly inside of him is painful like acid.

Thomasin’s breaths are quick and quiet. “Show me.”

John grips his waist, lifts Thomasin’s hips up. He mouths along the plane of Thomasin’s stomach.

He makes his descent, a trail of kisses and bites to the insides of Thomasin’s thighs. Thomasin tenses but he no longer puts up a fight, his knees bent at John’s sides.

John eats him out like he’s ravenous, face buried into the heat of Thomasin’s skin there where the flesh is tender and delicate. John devours him in slow licks, takes him apart with his mouth and his tongue and pushing and twisting two fingers in and out, then three, until Thomasin’s voice turns to shattered keens, pitched low in his throat. 

He pulls away when Thomasin’s legs start to shake, clenching trap-like around his shoulders, and he comes up, breathing in a gasp of air like a drowning man.

Thomasin keens in protest, straining against John’s belt. John lifts himself up on one elbow, fingers digging into Thomasin’s thighs to drag him close.

“Not done with you,” he rasps.

Thomasin’s chest rises and falls and he looks into John’s eyes, spreads his legs some more, unafraid.

“Give it to me, then,” he coaxes, mellowed out, offering surrender. John grips him bruisingly and grits his teeth and he pushes his cock inside. Shallow thrusts, slowly, at first, as Thomasin gasps and grunts and adjusts, eyes clenched shut. John sheathes himself inside him and it’s relief, _fuck_ , after everything, it’s not _home_ but it’s _shelter_ ; and he slides his palm across Thomasin’s chest and up to his neck again, loosely wraps his fingers around Thomasin’s throat, and he starts fucking into him more brutally. He picks up his pace, and Thomasin’s hips snap up to meet him like he’s electrified—spine arched like he’s _possessed_ —and John leans down and mouths at Thomasin’s collar bone, and he closes both hands around Thomasin’s neck in another mean squeeze.

There are women who would let him do this, and not just the ones he would have to pay for it. No doubt Thomasin puts up with this and worse, when it’s for money and not for pleasure; although even their pleasure, here, is still coated in negotiation.

It’s not the fucking. He could get that somewhere else. But it’s different, it’s something else, doing this with someone who knows the job, someone who walks the same goddamn path. It’s different, not having to hide the truth of what they are, what they do, to be buried inside someone who’s seen the same bones and blood and horror that he has. Hands like his own, tied by his own belt, hands that have cut and burned and maimed and killed.

John tightens his palms around Thomasin’s throat as he sinks into him viciously. _Before_ , he never would’ve done something like this—he never would’ve _wanted_ …

The fire burned that man away forever, along with the rest of his life from _before_ , that night in 1983. What the fire left of him is tainted, more vicious than any of the monsters in the shadows.

He fucks into him harder, now, with Thomasin’s ankles crossed around his lower back, and he digs his fingers in, and Thomasin’s pulse is searing under his touch. He could snap Thomasin’s neck, he really could. Steal the last of his air from his lungs forever. Small, breathless sounds fill John’s ears as he keeps pounding into him, and the pressure builds in his belly and he doesn’t stop. 

Thomasin’s not a demon, but sometimes he could almost look like one, when the light hits the brown of his eyes a certain way, and they almost look black.

Shadows and trails spread around him like vines. Other hunters don’t like him and they make no effort to hide it. Thomasin doesn’t like them either. Most of them.

And John knows, with the same thrilling certainty, that if Thomasin didn’t want him there, didn’t want this, John would be the one who might not make it out of there in one piece.

John can have this. He can _take_ this.

Thomasin is here, burning and alive, gasping under his hands and coming apart skin on skin, for John to hunt down and tear apart.

John tightens the pressure around Thomasin’s throat once more, just as he stabs into him with a string of vicious thrusts, the rhythm growing stuttering and erratic.

Thomasin’s teeth rattle, mouthing a soundless _Harder_ , and he clenches down around John’s cock—John curses, he’s so close, and his fingers shake in a tight circle around Thomasin’s throat.

Then Thomasin trembles and his head dips back into the pillow, his whole body bending backwards in a taut line, and inhales sharply when John releases him, and the aftershock of Thomasin’s orgasm darts underneath John’s skin.

John sags, groaning, a noise trough his teeth that feels like a scream ripped out of him, and white heat explodes through him as he comes with his forehead on Thomasin’s belly.

-

After, he sits up while Thomasin leans back, breathing heavily, legs sprawled out. John leans closer, releases his wrists.

Thomasin rubs absently at his arms, head sinking into the pillow. “You can go first, if you want.” A bare foot nudges John’s leg.

He rests his hand on Thomasin’s ankle and catches his breath. “Okay,” he says, quiet, then heads for the bathroom.

He takes a shower. He doesn’t stretch it out but he makes use of Thomasin’s hospitality, for now. There’s a white towel laid out for him on a stool. He can’t linger on these small things, the—ordinary things. It feels like an invasion of privacy, like overstaying his welcome—seeing more than he should be allowed to. It’s not the first time, but it aches all the same. 

He gets out and Thomasin is sitting at the foot of the bed, shoulders curved inward. John comes closer. He studies Thomasin’s profile; the collar of bruises blooming around Thomasin’s throat, on his bare thighs, on his hips. He did that to him. It doesn’t get easier, to swallow down the thrill that trembles under his skin because of that knowledge.

Thomasin stands, stretching his arms, and takes his turn in the bathroom next. The shower running again. John breathes slow and listens and waits.

Their eyes meet when Thomasin comes out, hair dripping, bare legs and a clean shirt. “Want something to drink?”

John hums, rubbing his face. He should say no. The weariness weighing down on him, now, all of a sudden, like a dead weight.

He accepts.

Thomasin slips into the side door leading to a dark kitchenette. He comes back with two beers, deposits an ice cold bottle in John’s hands. He drops by John’s side, just enough space between them that their knees aren’t brushing. Thomasin plays with his necklaces, gathering the pendants and twirling the chains in his palm, before putting them on again. He takes a swig, and John finds himself mirroring him.

“Gotta hand it to you.” Thomasin runs his fingers over his neck, slow, back and forth. His knuckles are bruised, scraped red. John hadn’t noticed, before. “You’re still the biggest, baddest hunter in the game.”

Thomasin looks at John and laughs, a small, gentle, throaty noise. It’s something Thomasin said before, mouth quirking in a grin, the night they first met. _“John Winchester in the flesh, the meanest hunter around, they say.”_ It was interest, then, an invitation. It’s teasing, and it’s not.

John hangs his head, a bitter smile tugging at his lips. He turns around, lifts his hand to brush his knuckles against Thomasin’s cheek. Thomasin’s mouth is swollen, but the blood has been washed off.

John shivers.

He moves closer, pressing his forehead to Thomasin’s. “You okay?”

Thomasin nods, soft. A small smile. “I’m good.”

He tilts his chin up, meets John’s mouth. John kisses him gently, more careful, now, fingertips lingering on Thomasin’s cheekbone.

They part, slowly. Sitting side by side, they share the last drinks of the night in the quiet room.

Thomasin’s bottle is half empty when John shifts, pulling himself upright. “Thomasin,” he says, firm, but quieter. _Business, now._ “You’ve got what you told me about?”

Thomasin nods. “Yeah. You have the book?”

“Inside my jacket. Left pocket.”

Thomasin gets up, goes to fetch the old tome. A rare copy from the late nineteenth century, in French, about conjuring rituals and legends surrounding Paris’ underground sewers. John recognized it when Thomasin told him the title, something he’d kept from a job with Missouri a few years back.

Thomasin rests the book on his knees, now, skimming the leather cover with reverent fingers. He hands him a small piece of paper in return.

“That’s all I’ve got,” Thomasin says softly. “Can’t help you further than that.”

John glances up. “Thank you.” He nods, pocketing the piece of information. Strange deaths in Chicago, corpses found heartless.

Too many leads have taken him nowhere, too much smoke that swallows the world and hides the truth. He eyes Thomasin. “Your web of connections,” he says. Confirmation more than a question.

Thomasin shrugs, holding his gaze. “You have your informants, and I have mine.”

The silence between them stretches and strains. John turns away first, this time, to look at his own hands, splayed over his knees.

Word travels fast among hunters, and John has caught wind of something much darker than fucking for money. _Witch_ , people whisper behind Thomasin’s back, and _fang-fucker_. They say he’s spared bullets when he should’ve killed. There’s talk of one of his contacts being a monster, _a vampire_ , even, and that Thomasin let the creature go.

A soft touch on John’s shoulder.

“I meant it, before.” Thomasin’s voice cuts through the silence, and this, too, is not a question. “I know you wouldn’t hesitate, if it came down to it.” His eyes flick up to John’s face again. “Choose what you wanna believe, and you’ll do what you’ve gotta do.”

There’s no fear, just pragmatism, a remark like any other. It’s the reality of what they do, all of them; one they all learned long ago. Sooner or later, hunters may have to raise their weapon against someone they loved, someone they trusted. You don’t survive the path, unless you’re willing to do what needs to be done.

John thumbs at the hair on the nape of Thomasin’s neck, short and bristle, still damp after the shower. He presses their foreheads together and allows himself to close his eyes, for a moment, to let his shoulders sag. He wishes he could put down the weight he carries for longer than these brief, stolen minutes, hours; but he can’t.

Thomasin lifts a hand, rests his palm gently against John’s cheek. “I wish you luck. To you and your boys.”

That’s as far as he’s ever gone touching the topic of John’s family. He’s never met his sons, but he knows about them, he must’ve heard the stories that surround them. Hunters in their own right, now, the two of them.

Thomasin pulls away. He presses his palm to John’s chest, right over his heart. Pale fingers ghost over John’s shirt, drawing an invisible sign of the cross. Thomasin’s not a believer, these days; but habits die hard, and there’s power in ancient rites of protection. Hunters are superstitious folks, and for good reason.

“Careful out there, John,” Thomasin says.

John nods, clasps a hand over Thomasin’s fingers for a moment. “You too.”

“Always am.” Thomasin smiles. It’s quick, and strained. “Unless I’m not.”

  
And John thinks of Thomasin under the fluorescent lights of a vending machine, with a broken nose and a dislocated shoulder. In the summer, different town, couple months ago. John shouldn’t have been there, but when Thomasin texted him, he went. He thinks of what Thomasin told him, about what happened behind a gas station toilet, and a hunter that ended up buried in a ditch.

 _“Fucker had it coming,”_ is what Thomasin said, but his hands wouldn’t stop shaking around the bottle John had handed to him, for his wounds and for—everything else.

John said he couldn’t help, that he wouldn’t. But he kept an eye out for Thomasin, and he tipped him off when people came looking.

Thomasin owed him for that. It’s not about money, between the two of them; but it’s always an exchange, and they’re never even.

John looks at the bridge of Thomasin’s nose, slightly crooked after it never healed quite right.

It always comes down to that. Killing one of their own. It’s the life they lead, it’s what it turns them into.

John stands up. His mind is drifting already. He could use some sleep, but he won’t stay for the night. He slides his jacket on.

Instead, what he’s gonna do is drive back to the safe house where he’s stashed some of the weapons he’s gonna need. He’ll be back on the road before dawn, following Thomasin’s lead.

He turns around on the doorway.

Thomasin raises his half empty bottle. “Till next time, John.”

It’s always a wish, a hope, nothing to do with the reality of whether they’ll see each other again.

It’s superstition. It’s a prayer.

John’s hand hovers on the doorframe.

“Good night, Thomasin.”

**Author's Note:**

> ... Vodka is not my favorite drink and I have never fucked John Winchester. 
> 
> -  
> Ohh, so this is what John is up to when he's NOT PICKING UP HIS FUCKING PHONE.
> 
> I decided to be somewhat ambiguous about whether Thomasin is undergoing hormone therapy, since his life as a hunter might make it difficult, plus it seems like the kind of detail John might not know much about.  
> I went ahead and tweaked canon a little bit to make Thomasin helpful in leading John to the shadow demons. >:)
> 
> Fun fact that I didn't mention about Thomasin's backstory. He became a hunter after his boyfriend, years prior, was killed and replaced by a ghoul. Thomasin fought and killed the ghoul. His locket contains a strip of bloodied fabric he tore from the clothes the creature had been wearing. 
> 
> This is a very fanon depiction of John. It's not necessarily aligned with what I think is true or plausible about him in canon, but it was fun to explore. ^^


End file.
